See Getting Started with AEM Communities to experience how quickly a community site can be created in the author environment, as well as how to create community groups from the author and publish environments.

Accessing Communities Sites Console

The Communities Sites console displays any existing community sites. From this console, community sites may be created, edited, managed and deleted.

To create a new community site, select the Create icon.

To access an existing community site, for the purpose of authoring, modifying, publishing, exporting, or adding a nested group, select the site's folder icon.

For example, the following image shows the main Communities Sites console displaying the folders for two community sites : enable and engage :

Site Creation

The site creation console provides a step-by-step approach to assemble features of the site based on a selected community site template and settings.

Every site created includes a login feature as site visitors are required to sign in before being able to post content, send messages, or participate in a group. Other included features are user profiles, messaging, notifications, site menu, search, theming, and branding.

The process is launched by selecting the Create button located at the top of the Communities Sites console.

The creation process is a series of steps presented as panels containing a set of features to be configured (presented as sub-panels). It is possible to move forward to the Next step or Back to the previous step before committing the site in the final step.

Step 1 : Site Template

On the Site Template panel, the Title, Description, Site Root, Base Language, Name and Site Template are specified:

Community Site Title : a display title for the site.
The title appears on the published site as well as in the site admin UI.

Community Site Description : a description of the site.
The description does not appear on the published site.

Community Site Root : the root path to the site.
The default root is /content/sites, but the root may be moved to any location within the web site.

Community Site Base Language : (leave untouched for single language : English) use the pull down menu to choose one or more base languages from the available languages- German, Italian, French, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Traditional), and Chinese (Simplified). One community site will be created for each language added, and will exist within the same site folder following the best practice described in Translating Content for Multilingual Sites. The root page of each site will contain a child page named by the language code of one of the languages selected, such as 'en' for English or 'fr' for French.

Community Site Name : the name of the site's root page which appears in the URL

double-check the name as it is not easily changed after the site is created

the base URL (http://server:port/site root/site name) will be displayed underneath the Community Site Name

Step 2 : Design

COMMUNITY SITE THEME

The framework uses Twitter Bootstrap to bring a responsive, flexible design to the site. One of the many preloaded Bootstrap themes may be selected to style the selected community site template, or a Bootstrap theme may be uploaded.

When selected, the theme will be overlayed with an opaque blue checkmark.

After the community site is published, it is possible to edit the properties and select a different theme.

COMMUNITY SITE BRANDING

Community site branding is an image displayed as a header across the top of each page.

The image should be sized to be as wide as the expected display of the page in the browser and 120 pixels in height.

When creating or selecting an image, keep in mind :

the image height will be cropped to 120 pixels measured from the top edge of the image

the image is pinned to the left edge of the browser window

there is no resizing of the image, such that when the image width is...

less than the browser's width, the image will repeat horizontally

greater than the browser's width, the image will appear to be cropped

Select Next.

Step 3 : Settings

The Settings panel contains several sub-panels presenting features to configure before moving to the last step to create the site.

USER MANAGEMENT

A community site is private when anonymous site visitors are denied access, may not self-register, and may not use social login.

Allow User Registration
If checked, site visitors may become community members by self-registration.
If unchecked, the community site is restricted and site visitors must be assigned to the community site's members group, make a request or be sent an invitation by email. If unchecked, anonymous access should not be allowed.
Uncheck for a private community site. Default is checked.

Allow Anonymous Access
If checked, the community site is open and any site visitor may access the site.
If unchecked, only signed-in members may access the site.
Uncheck for a private community site. Default is checked.

Allow Messaging
If checked, members may send messages to one another and to the group within the community site.
If unchecked, messaging is not setup for the community.
Default is unchecked.

Allow Social Logins: FacebookIf checked, allow site visitors to sign in with their Facebook account credentials. The selected Facebook cloud configuration should be configured to add users to the community site's members group once the community site is created.
If unchecked, no Facebook login is presented.
Leave unchecked for a private community site. Default is unchecked.

Allow Social Logins: Twitter
If checked, allow site visitors to sign in with their Twitter account credentials. The selected Twitter cloud configuration should be configured to add users to the community site's members group once the community site is created.
If unchecked, no Twitter login is presented.
Leave unchecked for a private community site. Default is unchecked.

ROLES

Community Managers
Start typing to select one or more community members or member groups who may manager community members and member groups.

Community Moderators
Start typing to select one or more community members or member groups who are to be trusted as moderators of user generated content.

Community Privileged Members
Start typing to select one or more community members or member groups to be given the ability to create new content when Allow Privileged Member has been selected for a community function.

MODERATION

The global setting for moderating user generated content (UGC) is controlled by these settings. Individual components have additional settings to control moderation.

Content is Premoderated
If checked, posted community content will not appear until approved by a moderator. Default is unchecked. For more information, see Moderating Community Content.

Flagging threshold before content is hidden
If greater than 0, the number of times a topic or post has to be flagged before it is hidden from public view. If set to -1, the flagged topic or post is never hidden from public view. Default is 5.

ANALYTICS

Enable Analytics
Only available when Adobe Analytics has been configured for Communities features.
Default is unchecked. When checked, an additional selection menu appears :

Cloud Config Framework Reference
From the pull-down menu, select the Analytics cloud service framework configured for this community site.Communities is the framework example from Analytics Configuration for Communities Features documentation.

TRANSLATION

Allow Machine Translation
When checked (default is unchecked), machine translation is enabled for UGC within the site. This does not affect any other content, such as page content, even if the site is setup as a multilingual site. See Translating User Generated Content for information on configuring a licensed translation service for AEM Communities. See Translating Content for Multilingual Sites for a complete overview.

Enable Machine Translation for selected languages
The languages enabled for machine translation default to the system setting specified by the translation integration configuration. These default settings may be overridden for this site by deleting defaults and/or selecting other languages from the pull-down menu.

Choose translation provider
By default, the service provider is a trial service using microsoft for demonstration only. If no translation service provider is licensed, Allow Machine Translation should be unchecked.

Choose global shared store
For a website with multiple language copies, a global shared store provides a single thread of conversation, visible from each langauge copy. This is achieved by selecting one of the languages included as a language copy. Default is No Global Shared Store.

Translate entire page
If selected, all UGC on a page is translated into the base language of the page.
Default is not selected.

Translate selection only
If selected, a translate option appears next to each post allowing individual posts to be translated into the base language of the page.
Default is selected.

Select Persistence Options

Translate contributions on user request and persist afterwards
If selected, content is not translated until a request is made. Once translated, the translation is stored in the repository.
Default is not selected.

Don't persist translations
If selected, translations are not stored in the repository.
If not selected, translations are persisted.
Default is not selected.

Smart Render
Select one of

Always show contributions in the original language (default)

Always show contributions in user preferred language

Show contributions in user preferred language for only logged-in users

ENABLEMENT

The ENABLEMENT settings are applicable when the chosen community site template includes the assignments function, which is available when the enablement features are licensed and configured. The reference site template that includes the assignments function is Reference Structured Learning Site Template.

Enablement Managers
(required) Only members of the Community Enablementmanagers group are available to be selected to manage this enablement community. Enablement managers are responsible for assigning members to resources. See also Managing Users and User Groups.

Authoring Site Content

The content of a site may be authored with the same tools as any other AEM website. To open the site for authoring, select the Open Site iconm that appears on hovering the site with mouse. The site will open in a new tab such that the Communities Sites console remains accessible.

Modify Enablement

Publishing the Site

After a community site has been newly created or modified, it is possible to publish (activate) the site by selecting the Publish Site icon, that appears on mouse hover over the site.

There will be an indication after site is successfully published.

Publishing with Nested Groups

After publishing a community site, it is necessary to individually publish each sub-community (nested group) created using the Groups console.

Exporting the Site

Select the export icon, on mouse hover over the site, to create a package of the community site that is both stored in package manager and downloaded.
Note that UGC is not included in the site package.

Deleting the Site

To delete the community site, select the Delete Site icon that appears on hovering the mouse over the site in Communities Site Console. This action removes all the items associated with the site, such as UGC, user groups, assets and database records.

Created Community User Groups

Once the new community site is published, new member groups (user groups are created in the publish environment) which have the appropriate permissions set for various administrative and member roles.

The name created for the member groups includes the site-name given the site in Step 1 (the name which appears in the URL) as well as an unique ID to avoid conflicts with community sites and groups having the same site-name for different community site roots.

For example, if the name were "engage" for a site titled "Getting Started Tutorial", then the user group for moderators would be :

title : Community Engage Moderators

name : community-engage-uid-moderators

Notice that any members assigned roles as moderators or group administrators while creating the site, will be assigned to the appropriate group as well as assigned to the members group. These groups and member assignments are created on publish when the new site is published.